Review of ‘4.48 Psychosis’: “Killing prose fails to live up to full potential in unresponsive revival”

The Royal Court Theatre hosts the return of Sarah Kane’s posthumous play — in a production delivered in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of its world premiere on the same stage. Guillermo Nazara shares his views on the show — to let us know if its crude depiction of mental demise explores such a pivotal subject in today’s society with enough lucidity.

It’s strange to review a show whose text holds such terrible significance to its author. I must confess that, up until before writing this piece, I wasn’t aware of its harrowing background — yet I could already tell about it as I watched.

4.48 Psychosis is no reenactment or artistic interpretation of what it’s like when your sanity forsakes you. It’s a factual, honest statement of someone pouring her bleeding soul out through the rawest words. First premiered at London’s Royal Court in 2000, a year and a half after playwright Sarah Kane took her own life, the show has returned to its birthplace (for lack of a more sensitive word) — in a production directed by James Macdonald and put together in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

A divisive work from its inception, it may come across as sacrilege to demean what many regard as a classic in its own right nowadays. The show had an intermittent grip on me through the rendition. At some moments, its brutality pierced through me. I was perplexed by the personal hell the human mind can lock somebody in and the savagery of its depiction. At others, though, my disconnection was almost absolute. I could hear the lines — yet they wouldn’t speak to me. I could understand what it tried to convey — but its prose failed to trigger any feeling inside me.

We can’t appreciate the play for its refinement. Its flickering style, meandering between verbose and monosyllabic, doesn’t excel for its honed finish. Instead, it’s the sincerity of a broken spirit pulsating through every line that gives value to the script. Consequently, though, the weight of the show’s success relies primarily on how it’s interpreted — which, in this case, struggles to stir on the same level it does on paper.

The performance is visually solid, but it doesn’t align with the authenticity of the material. Neither the acting nor directional choices delve into the piece’s pathos. Instead, they present us with a bedecked exterior that exudes technical craftsmanship but displays no instinct or sympathy for what it’s bringing forward. It’s arresting to the eye yet anodyne to the heart. We can sense Kane’s steep emotions, but their delivery comes off flat.

As a result, our investment in the play’s journey is only partial. Some bits are exceptionally resonant — appealing to the wounds of those who, even in the slightest way, have found themselves in that same situation of self-destruction. Nonetheless, the portrayals’ overall vibe stands closer to an experimental act than a layered, well-explored interpretation that holds meaning to those delivering it.

Breathing through its creator’s sorrowful existentialism but unable to beat to the same cadence, the Royal Court’s revival of 4.48 Psychosis enraptures the viewer, for brief sequences, through the shrill, uncomfortable poignancy of its chaotically sensical text. However, the distance between the piece and those resurrecting it is too vast for its sombre charm to keep its flame. As an initial incursion into the work’s complex nature, we can eulogize it. Yet, they still haven’t unburied its true potential.

All pictures credit to Marc Brenner.

4.48 Pyschosis plays at London’s Royal Court Theatre until 5th July. Tickets are available on the following link.

By Guillermo Nazara